


Patience Is A Virtue

by shinealightonme



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Asexuality Spectrum, Established Relationship, First Time, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Post-Canon, delayed gratification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 09:20:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13163946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: Adam is totally fine with waiting, until Ronan finds out that's what he's doing.





	Patience Is A Virtue

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I don't even know. I never write porn, and yet. Porn.

Whatever other faults Adam has -- and he knows there are many -- he is not impatient.

Adam knows how to wait. He can even find satisfaction in waiting, in working, in the process of accomplishing a goal.

But part of how he gets through the wait is knowing how much further he has to hold out: _The next paycheck. The end of the semester. Graduation._

When that fails, he falls back on being stubborn as shit. It generally works.

So he's good at waiting.

But God, it's hard waiting to have sex with Ronan.

It helps, or maybe it doesn't, that they've been making out a lot since everything with the demon went down. With no Cabeswater to protect, no king to find, no father to hide from, no mother to save -- well, they have more free time then they used to.

And some of that time is spent like this: Ronan's mouth, and Adam's hands, and the ink under Ronan's skin, and every last one of Adam's freckles; Ronan leaning over the gear shift of the BMW, or Adam catching Ronan by surprise out in the barn, or one time, memorably, the library at Aglionby late in the afternoon when no one else was around; breathing each other's air until they're deliriously short on oxygen, until Adam is high on his own longing, until he thinks _this is it,_ until he practically knows what it would be like to rub against Ronan, or to unzip Ronan's fly and wrap his hand around him, or to get to his knees and _taste_ Ronan -- 

But he always stops himself. Because Ronan has never gone for anything more than making out. Because Ronan will kiss Adam for hours, as though there isn't anything else in the world he wants to do. Because Ronan will kiss Adam for hours and then _ask him if he wants to crash in Declan's room_ , and it's hard to take that as anything other than a sword between sleepers. Though he doesn't know if Ronan is protecting Adam's virtue or his own.

Every time they part -- every time he collapses in Declan's bed, which is easily becoming his least favorite place in the Barns, if not the entire state of Virginia -- Adam thinks, _I should have said something this time. I should say something next time._

And then the next time comes around, and he doesn't.

Because, well, he loves making out with Ronan. He doesn't want to ruin that.

But it feels like lying, that he hasn't even admitted to Ronan that he's waiting for something more.

It's possible, maybe, that Ronan is waiting for him to say something; but whenever Adam thinks that, he dismisses it as false hope. Ronan isn't that subtle. Not that Ronan isn't capable of waiting, not that Ronan would just take what he wants -- though, God, Adam wouldn't mind if he did.

But Adam would know, if Ronan wanted to. And Ronan shows no sign of wanting to.

So. Adam is good at waiting.

But it's hard to wait, if he doesn't know what he's waiting for.

-

They've been dating for four months when Adam decides to get it over with.

"Do you want to have sex?"

He's sitting in the passenger seat of the BMW, and Ronan's driving on the highway back to Henrietta. He figures it's a good time: there's no way Ronan could think Adam is asking him to have sex _right now_ , which takes some of the pressure off. And Ronan loves his car, so they're on his turf. Adam wants to make this as painless as possible for Ronan, and he thinks he's done a pretty good job.

Apparently he miscalculated, because Ronan jerks the wheel so hard the car crosses into the opposite lane.

There isn't any oncoming traffic, and Ronan course-corrects violently a second later. But it still causes a moment of heart-stopping terror, which is not really the mood that Adam was going for.

"What did you say?"

"I said, do you want to have sex with me? I thought it was a straightforward question," Adam adds, after a long wait with no answer. "Yes, no, maybe."

"I don't know," Ronan snaps.

"You don't know?"

"I hadn't thought about it." Ronan runs a hand over his head. "Fuck. You're never allowed to complain about my driving again if you distract me like this."

"How distracting can it be if you've never thought about it?"

"I'm thinking about it _now_ ," Ronan says, and that does something funny to Adam's insides, even though he sounds more annoyed than anything. "I'm not a monk."

"Yeah, I was never going to mistake you for one." Adam falls silent, trying to give Ronan space to think. And to stop himself from saying anything he'd regret.

Honestly, in predicting how this conversation would play out, he'd pictured a hundred different possibilities. He thought he'd covered every outcome, from Ronan jumping him to Ronan breaking up with him. But he had completely missed _I hadn't thought about it_ ; he has less imagination than he realized.

Adam thinks about having sex with Ronan all the time: at work, in class, while trying to have a normal conversation with Gansey or Blue, _definitely_ while making out with Ronan. He'd assumed that Ronan put at least some of the same time into thinking about it, even if he doesn't want to, or doesn't want to _yet_ , or doesn't want to _with Adam_ , which is a fear that refuses to be banished even though it feels unlikely given how often and how eagerly Ronan kisses him. But Ronan hadn't thought about it at all until Adam had opened his mouth.

Adam wishes he'd kept his mouth shut, and also that he'd said something weeks ago.

Ronan doesn't speak for the rest of the drive, so Adam doesn't, either. There's a moment when he gets out of the car where he thinks Ronan is going to say something, but the moment passes, and Ronan just nods when Adam says _good night_.

Adam goes inside and tries not to worry that he's ruined everything.

-

Adam passes by Ronan's locker first thing every morning, because he likes to find out early if Ronan has deigned to come to school that day. It helps him manage his expectations. 

Ronan can often be found at or near his locker, despite the fact that it's perpetually empty. Adam would ask Ronan why he bothers to hang around a locker he doesn't use, but -- Adam's locker is right down the hall. Which means Ronan might go there as an excuse to find Adam. If that's the case, Adam doesn't want to embarrass either of them by asking him to admit it. And if that's not the case, he doesn't want to hear that, either.

So he nods a greeting to Ronan while swapping out a copy of Paradise Lost for his French textbook.

Ronan nods back and slams his locker shut. Probably just for the sound of metal clanging on metal; Ronan doesn't go to French. He says it's in protest of Latin being cancelled, which would be more convincing if it wasn't his and Adam's fault that their Latin teacher fled the state in fear for his life.

"Hey." Ronan is such a sweet-talker.

"Hey."

"You working on Friday?"

"Yeah," Adam says, trying to decide if he needs his French dictionary. Probably. He attempts to stuff it into his too-full bag. "I get off at ten, you want to do something?"

"I want to have sex," Ronan says.

Adam drops his bag.

It's not a dignified moment. Adam is usually better at handling the unexpected with grace. But twelve hours ago the mere _suggestion_ of having sex with Adam _someday_ almost ran them off the road, and Adam had thought that was going to be the last he heard of that.

Ronan raises an eyebrow at him. God forbid he miss an opportunity to rub it in that Adam displayed weakness and he didn't. Ronan is _such an asshole_. He's probably bringing this up now, in the middle of the hallway at school, as payback for Adam distracting him while he was driving.

But that doesn't mean it isn't also a genuine invitation, and yeah, Adam's interested. Can't be anything _but_ interested in anything that Ronan wants to do to him.

"Okay." Adam disciplines his voice, almost sounds like someone who didn't just drop half his textbooks on the floor. "Are you -- " His brain reminds him, unhelpfully, that it's Monday. " _Friday_? What about tonight?"

"We have _school_ tomorrow, Parrish," Ronan drawls. "I need to study and get to sleep at a reasonable hour." This is _definitely_ payback.

The bell rings.

Adam swears and kneels down to collect his bag and his spilled books. He didn't have room for the French dictionary _anyway_ , and now he's got to cram back in his calculus textbook and three separate binders and -- 

He's leaning forward to grab a notebook by Ronan's foot when he realizes exactly where he is: on his knees, in front of Ronan, moments after Ronan propositioned him.

He goes red all over, hoping that Ronan doesn't notice the compromising position he's in.

And hoping too, in a strange, hot, eager way, that Ronan _does_ notice.

The hallway empties around them. Adam makes no progress on fitting his belongings back into his bag.

Ronan nudges the notebook closer to Adam with one foot, then shifts his weight onto that foot and takes a step closer to Adam.

He's as good as saying that he knows what Adam is thinking.

Adam's eyes dart from Ronan's foot up to Ronan's crotch. He's _right there_ , Adam could -- 

He forces himself to keep looking up, to Ronan's face.

That feels more indecent, somehow, staring up at Ronan from so far below. Especially when Ronan is smirking at him like sin incarnate.

"God, Parrish," Ronan says. "You make it too easy."

Adam wants to say something to that -- something decisive, and clever, that will get him the upper hand that he has not had for a single moment in this conversation -- but then Ronan reaches down and runs a hand through his hair.

Adam makes a noise, involuntary. His eyes slide shut. Over the sudden loud pounding of his own heart he can hear Ronan walking away.

Adam is very late to French class.

-

They go to Nino's after school, to eat pizza and watch Gansey and Cheng pester Blue. It's like some obscure punishment that ought to be banned by the Constitution, or at least frowned on by polite society.

Although if anyone is unfit for polite society, it has to be Adam, squirming in his seat and trying not to look at Ronan more than every ten seconds and completely failing to follow the conversation that's happening two feet away from his good ear. 

That last part may not be entirely his fault. The Gansey-Cheng mutual appreciation society is a bit much to take under the best of circumstances. Today is not the best of circumstances, not when Adam can't stop watching the way Ronan's lips wrap around the mouth of his Coca Cola bottle.

"Don't you think so, Parrish-man?" Cheng asks, while Adam is studying how Ronan's throat moves as he swallows.

"What?" Adam asks, and draws the scrutiny of three people -- oh, God, _four_ , because Blue arrived at some point with a pitcher of iced tea. "Sorry, I wasn't listening."

"Are you all right?" Gansey asks, completely earnest, like he isn't going to give up until Adam has explained his mental state in excruciating detail. Adam cannot think of a single thing he wants to do less in this life.

"Fine," Adam says. "I'm just tired."

But he can't keep his eyes off Ronan, which means he gets to see the exact second that the switch flips in his mind. Ronan's eyes widen, and then narrow as he smirks.

Adam looks away.

He avoids catching Ronan's eye for a good minute or two, even manages to express an opinion in Gansey and Cheng's conversation -- though what it is, later on, he has no idea -- but all too soon he's looking back over.

Ronan is already watching him.

To Adam's horrified and uncomfortable arousal, Ronan slowly licks pizza grease off his thumb, maintaining eye contact with Adam the entire time.

Adam mumbles an excuse and flees to the restroom.

-

Ronan is at his locker the next day looking the very picture of an Aglionby student. His shirt is tucked in underneath his school cardigan, his buttons are done up, and the knot of his tie is impeccable.

Adam tries to look on the bright side. There may be such a thing as _too confused to be turned on_. If there is, he's about to find out.

Gansey is nothing less than delighted at seeing Ronan voluntarily attend a class. Ronan happily turns that delight to his advantage by roping Gansey into a conversation right in front of Adam's desk, which prevents Adam from having even one second's peace to try to figure out what the hell Ronan is up to. From the little smirking glances Ronan keeps shooting him, that is entirely the point.

Monsieur Lefevre enters a minute after the bell rings, eyes glued to the papers in his hands, only distractedly throwing out his typical "bonjour, messieurs, asseyez-vous -- "

He looks up and his eyes land on Ronan, and then he looks over his shoulder like he thinks he's walked into the wrong classroom. It would be funny, except that Ronan has a look on his face that belongs in some children's storybook about angels, and Adam doesn't trust that shit at all.

"Pardonnez, professeur." Ronan's accent isn't completely hopeless. He takes a seat in the only open chair left in the room, three rows over from Adam, and pulls a notebook and a pen out of a backpack that Adam has literally never seen before. Did Ronan go _shopping for school supplies_ just to fuck with Adam's head?

Right. Of course he did. Adam jerks his focus up to the front of the classroom, ignores the way that Lefevre's voice falters when he hits "Monsieur -- Lynch?" during role call. Ignores the way that Ronan answers "présent" like he's been saying it all year. Ignores the little frown of concentration on Ronan's face as he takes notes in what is _clearly_ a brand new notebook, it's pristine and he's writing on the very first page and --

And Adam is doing a _lousy_ job of ignoring Ronan and his mind games, and the exact moment he realizes this is the exact moment that Ronan looks at him out of the corner of his eye.

Adam's going to look away. Really. Any second now. As soon as he figures out what Ronan's up to.

The corner of Ronan's mouth curls up, anything but angelic, and he reaches up with one hand to tug his tie looser.

Adam slams his eyes back on his own notebook, where he has apparently drawn an enormous slash through his notes. He scrambles to salvage them, to salvage anything from this class, but as soon as Lefevre has called on him and he's satisfactorily displayed his verbal comprehension, his attention darts over to Ronan again.

Ronan makes eye contact with him and slowly unbuttons the top button of his shirt.

It's the slowest strip tease of all time. Ronan tugs his sweater off the next time Adam looks at him, for all that the French classroom is freezing this time of year. In Civics he volunteers to help the teacher get something down from the top of the storage cupboard and _just happens_ to untuck his shirt as he does so. In English Lit he rolls his sleeves up, and it doesn't help that they're doing Shakespeare again this week and it's all innuendo and double entendre in the first place.

It ridiculous and sadistic and it shouldn't have the power to distract Adam at all. By the end of the day Ronan is barely as rumpled and disreputable looking as he would be on any other day. It's a dumb game and it has absolutely no power over him.

Adam is a complete wreck and his notes are a mess and _three entire hours_ after school has ended the image comes to him, unbidden, of Ronan's fingers pulling at his tie ( _undressing himself, for Adam_ ), and he drops a toolbox with a crash of noise that takes a decade off of his life.

-

Wednesday he knows what to expect. Ronan can't take him by surprise this time. When he finds Ronan in the morning he only raises an eyebrow at the books in Ronan's arms (he knows for a _fact_ that Ronan set his World Civilizations textbook on fire, so _where the hell did he get the one he's holding_ ) and keeps walking. He's expecting it, when Ronan starts up with his coy-student-boy games again. He knows what's happening. It won't be as distracting as it was yesterday.

It's a hundred times worse.

Adam has no idea how he makes it through the day. He emerges from science lab and realizes that he's blacked out everything that happened after Ronan "accidentally" spilled acetic acid all over his shirt and the teacher told him to remove it.

It gets bad enough he ends up in the bathroom, the one out past the gym that no one ever uses. Part of him just wants to get it over with, take care of matters by himself so he can maybe think about something other than Ronan for three seconds in a row.

But another part of him _really_ doesn't want to be the guy who jerked off in a bathroom stall at Aglionby, and the biggest part of him knows that would be cheating.

He splashes cold water on his face and goes out to let Ronan torture him some more.

-

Wednesday night Ronan drives out to the factory to see Adam on his break. That's not unusual. Ronan will often swing by on nights Adam is working, park his car in the farthest corner of the parking lot so Adam can eat his dinner and work on his schoolwork and complain about Ronan's radio presets for twenty-five minutes before his timer goes off and reminds him to head inside for the rest of his shift.

But Adam has been turned on for _three entire days_ , and when he walks across the parking lot to find Ronan leaning against the BMW, ethereal and supernatural in the moonlight, waiting for _Adam_ \-- it's more than he can take.

Adam is on Ronan before he can think about it, his mouth catching Ronan's, and Ronan's hands come up to frame his face, like he has to trap Adam. Like Adam has any intention of ever being anywhere that isn't right here.

Adam places his hands on Ronan's hips, tugs them closer together. It isn't enough contact; he wants more, wants every part of him touching every part of Ronan. He slides his right hand down, between their bodies, and rubs it against the front of Ronan's jeans, and --

\-- and Ronan takes him by the wrist and pulls his hand away.

Adam breaks the kiss, reality crashing back down on him. This wasn't what Ronan had agreed to, not yet, not _here_ , in the parking lot outside the trailer factory. Adam pulls away, ready to apologize for going too far, for forgetting the boundaries.

But Ronan is looking at him with that same knowing smirk he's had all week, and he leans forward to growl in Adam's ear, " _not yet._ "

"Holy shit." Adam is instantly, painfully on the edge. He just needs the slightest bit of pressure -- friction -- anything -- to set him over. If he just twitches his hips once, up against Ronan -- 

But Ronan told him to wait. 

So he waits. 

The whole world is this: Ronan's fingers around his wrist. The tight hot need in his gut. His unsteady breath, gasping and gulping air and fighting desperately for control.

And Ronan's voice in his ear again, "not yet."

Adam groans and drops his head onto Ronan's shoulder.

"Fuck," he says, when he finally feels like he isn't about to come. "I think you're going to kill me."

"No," Ronan says. "I'm not done with you yet."

Adam shivers.

Ronan's arms come up to cradle him, and he presses his lips gently against Adam's ear.

Adam clings to him, aching and comforted and confused about everything except that this is exactly where he wants to be, until his alarm goes off.

-

By Thursday it isn't a game anymore, if it ever was a game. Adam thinks maybe they've already started, that maybe this is sex and they've been having sex for four days now. He hadn't realized you could have sex without knowing you were having it, but it figures that anything involving Ronan is going to be ten times as confusing as it ought to be.

He's maybe not thinking too clearly, but that's to be expected when Ronan has him cornered in the library, face pressed against the stacks and his mouth hot and wet on the back of his neck. There's a _class_ going on five aisles down, information literacy, and Ronan's undoing the buttons on Adam's shirt to slide his hand up and press it flat against Adam's stomach.

Adam swallows a groan. He tries to lean back, to grind against Ronan, but Ronan's nails dig into his stomach, wordless reproach, and Adam falls still again. Ronan is barely touching him, running one hand lightly up his chest and mouthing at the back of his neck and that's _it_ , no other points of contact at all, and it's too much and not even close to enough.

Ronan lifts his mouth up to Adam's ear. He has to step closer to Adam to do so, and Adam shivers at the brush of Ronan's chest against his back. He doesn't let himself react beyond that, doesn't push closer, doesn't whirl around and kiss the life out of him. Just waits for Ronan to say whatever it is he's going to say.

Ronan scrapes his teeth oh so gently along Adam's earlobe.

Adam whimpers.

Ronan slides his hand back out of Adam's shirt and leaves him like that, disheveled and shaking and out of breath in Modern Classics.

Adam straightens his clothes and catches his breath but never recovers, exactly; so when he spots Ronan loitering in the hallway when he's out of class on a bathroom pass (Ronan presumably deciding there's no point in attending a class where he can't fuck with Adam), he grabs Ronan's hand and pulls him into the janitor's closet down the hall without a second thought, or even much of a first thought.

It's not great kissing, desperate and fumbling and artless, except that Ronan is kissing him back and that makes it wonderful by default: Ronan's lip between his teeth and Ronan's hands heavy on his back and the hitch in Ronan's breath when Adam's fingers find that sensitive spot just below his ribcage.

And then, as all wonderful things do, it ends.

Ronan pulls away from him, breaks off all contact, and Adam takes a step back of his own. Ronan gives him a look that's barely a smile, a little crooked, a little wary. Adam tries to return it and overshoots by a mile. He's grinning wide enough that Ronan looks honestly confused for a second; but only for a second.

Adam's entire life has been defined by _want_ , but he's never wanted anything half as audacious as Ronan; and this time, he's going to get what he wants, if he can wait one more day.

"Tomorrow," Ronan tells him, and it's perfect. It's what he was after when he pulled Ronan in here, he thinks, more than the physical contact. What he really wanted was Ronan telling him to wait, a rebuke and a promise rolled into one.

Adam shuts his eyes. "Tomorrow."

-

Friday Ronan doesn't come to school. His absence in front of the lockers is a sharp stab of disappointment, for all that Adam tries to be relieved that he can focus on school for a change.

It doesn't work. He keeping going about his day and then tripping, because _here_ Ronan had touched his wrist and _here_ Ronan had brushed fake lint off his shoulder and _there_ Ronan had pressed his thumb to his own lips and Adam had known, known, that Ronan was thinking about kissing him.

Ronan's not even here but he's still screwing with Adam's head and yeah, that sounds about right.

Adam knows that Ronan won't drive to the factory that night. He eats his dinner outside anyway, tries to soak in the cold winter air. Time is playing tricks on him; he'll check his watch five times in three minutes, and then not again for an hour, and it all feels the same. Not quite real, not quite present, and it's all passing by under his eyes like he's watching it on a screen: dinner, the rest of his shift, the drive out to the Barns.

Ronan's out on the porch already, leaning against the door. He heard Adam pulling up the driveway, maybe, or maybe he's just been waiting. Adam meets his eyes through the windshield and has the strange, unexpected thought that if time were to keep misbehaving, to freeze him in this moment forever, then that wouldn't be so bad.

He gets out of the car.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Ronan doesn't make any move to get closer to him. It shouldn't be remarkable, but after the last week --

Hell, Adam doesn't know what's remarkable after the last week. He doesn't know what's normal.

"Is Opal around?" Adam asks, because she usually makes herself known by now, even if she's in a mood where she doesn't want to be greeted properly. She'll poke her head out from behind a tree, dash past him too quick to touch.

"Out in the barn. Trying to be tactful."

" _Tactful_?"

"She's not very good at it."

"Whereas you're such an expert."

Ronan steps back, makes a dismissive noise. "Go say hi if you want."

"I'd hate to discourage her if she's experimenting with courtesy."

As soon as they step inside the house Ronan turns and kisses Adam. Adam can barely kiss him back before Ronan's stepping away, ending the kiss as abruptly as he'd started it. Adam is too out of breath, for how short a kiss that was; Ronan doesn't look much better.

"Come on." Ronan leads him down the hallway, and Adam knows exactly where they're going. He runs his hand along the wall as he walks, the old safe walls that have become so familiar.

Ronan leads him to his bedroom. Adam is expecting it this time when Ronan kisses him too fast; Adam lets him, places a hand on his cheek and kisses back as softly and carefully as he can, because something isn't right.

Ronan tugs his shirt up, and that's okay, that's not anything new, even if the hands skating over his chest and his sides and -- Adam jumps -- his stomach feel like they have a new purpose. Adam slides a hand under Ronan's shirt, feeling out the muscles of his back, and Ronan quickly tugs the shirt over his head and tosses it to the ground.

He's only just gotten his hands back on Ronan -- fingers tracing his spine, pulling him close enough to brush bare chest against bare chest -- when Ronan tugs on his belt buckle.

Maybe it's because of the last week of being told to _wait_ , but the rush now feels wrong.

Adam steps away. Doesn't let himself feel anything at the betrayed expression on Ronan's face.

"What?"

Adam licks his lips. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Have I ever been forced to do something I didn't want to?"

"Yeah, actually."

Ronan scowls, such a familiar and beloved expression that Adam's heart clenches. "Take off your damn pants."

Adam takes off his damn pants. Pushes them off and steps out of them in instant obedience, and then wonders after the fact if he shouldn't have tried to -- make a show out of it. Be sexier. It's hard to think of _taking off jeans_ as being a very sexy act instead of what he does when he gets home from work.

He looks back up and sees Ronan watching him.

Adam slides his thumbs under the band of his underwear, pushes them down an inch in silent inquiry.

Ronan nods once, a quick jerk of the head. God, Adam wants to not screw this up. But if Ronan insists he's fine, maybe Adam should believe him. Adam is nervous too, after all.

Adam pushes his underwear down slowly. He doesn't look away from Ronan's face this time. Doesn't miss the way Ronan's eyes dart across his newly exposed skin, the way that Ronan swallows.

He feels silly standing in the middle of the room completely naked, and Ronan is just _looking_ at him, wordless, which doesn't make him feel any less self-conscious. He goes and sits on the edge of the bed. A second later he thinks how dumb that is -- okay, _bed_ is a safe bet but he was probably supposed to lie down or something --

Ronan sits down next to him. He's moving as slow and cautious now as when he approaches the deer that live in the woods, and Adam wonders which of them in this scenario is the wild one.

He turns his face toward Ronan just as Ronan is leaning toward him. Their lips meet crooked, off-center, and when Ronan pulls away it's not, as Adam expects, to line up their faces properly. Instead he kisses a line across Adam's cheek, to his ear, and down his neck.

Adam's eyes flutter shut, briefly, but the greedy part of his brain that never really shuts off tells him _don't look away, don't miss this._

He opens his eyes to the cozy impossible mess of Ronan's room. Realizes, with a start, that they are in the same place they'd been the first time Ronan had kissed him, side by side on his bed. It's like remembering something without forgetting it first: that this is _Ronan_ , the same boy who taught him to drive stick shift and made him a mix tape he hated and bribed a church director to lie to him.

Adam nudges Ronan's face away from his neck, smiling. Ronan blinks at him, twice, and then he smiles back, and when he kisses him this time there's nothing rushed or off-center about it; it's just making out, wonderful and sloppy and maybe a little cold because, okay, Adam _is_ naked.

Adam has his right hand propped up behind Ronan on the bed, arm pressed against his back. He reaches out with his left hand to touch Ronan's chest, and Ronan takes his hand, laces their fingers together.

It's nice, until it isn't, because Adam wants to _touch_ Ronan and every time he tries to get his hand free Ronan squeezes and holds on. And just in case Adam didn't get the idea, every time Ronan refuses to let him go he licks at Adam's jaw, or swipes his tongue over his ear, or bites his neck: _nice try, not yet_.

Ronan is sucking on his earlobe when Adam decides desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Ronan, _please_ ," Adam says, "please let me touch you."

Ronan pulls away; just enough that Adam can study his face. He thinks Ronan is going to say no, and right as he's about to take it back:

"Okay," Ronan says, confident. "Do it."

He frees Adam's hand, and Adam almost regrets that. He wants everything, all at once, sex and hand-holding and everything in between. But he's being foolish, so he pushes that aside and focuses on the task at hand, the task at hand being Ronan.

Adam traces a hand lightly over Ronan's collarbone, his shoulder, down his side, all the familiar and well-loved terrain that ends at the waistband of his jeans. He presses his face to Ronan's neck, breathing against his skin, and works open the button and the fly on the jeans. Ronan lifts himself up off the bed enough for Adam to tug his pants down, but they get stuck again around his knees and Ronan ends up kicking them off and halfway across the room.

Adam laughs, and Ronan glares at him like maybe it's his fault Ronan hadn't taken his pants off before he'd come to bed, and it's so wonderfully like Ronan that there's nothing for Adam to do but kiss him.

Or -- no, there is more than that. Because Ronan is _naked_ , and pressed up against him, and Adam has just been given free rein to touch him. He feels dizzy with possibility, licks his tongue against Ronan's mouth one last time before he presses his forehead against Ronan's and runs a hand down to his thigh.

He realizes his mistake quick enough. Ronan's sitting on his right side, because that's where he likes to keep Ronan, but that means his right hand is propped up behind Ronan and his left hand is the one resting on Ronan's thigh. He should have planned better, or hell, planned at _all_ , and maybe he should move, though he doesn't have any better ideas of how to go about this. 

Ronan tilts his head, brushes his nose against Adam's cheekbone, and Adam decides, just how they are, right now, is a perfect idea on its own.

He runs his left hand up against Ronan's back, pulls Ronan against him and shifts his own weight, until there's enough space between them for him to slide his right hand between their bodies and around Ronan's cock.

Ronan swears. He's hard and hot in Adam's hand, tense all over. Adam wants to tell him something, but can't think of anything to say; he settles for kissing Ronan's ear, gently running his tongue along the inside of it when that makes Ronan shiver. And all the while he's sliding his hand over Ronan.

Or he's trying to. The skin of his palm catches and sticks, doesn't move smoothly the way he wants it to, and he has the horrible idea that he's hurting Ronan because he can't get this _right_.

Ronan says, in a voice he doesn't even recognize, "give me your hand."

Adam gives it to him.

Ronan uncurls his fingers and presses a kiss against Adam's palm. Keeps a hold of Adam's hand, eyes shut and perfectly still except for the uneven breath along Adam's skin.

And then he licks Adam's hand, runs his tongue all the way from his wrist to his fingers.

That ought to be gross. Instead it sends a spike of lust straight through Adam, flips his stomach upside-down, until it feels like if he doesn't kiss Ronan _right this second_ he might actually die. He gets his mouth on Ronan's mouth and his hand over Ronan's cock again, and this time he has no trouble running his hand over the shaft.

Ronan grips Adam's hip, hard; splays his other hand out along Adam's back and digs his nails into the skin until Adam gasps and bites at his lip. He's breathing hard, but he doesn't make a sound, not when Adam toys with the head of his cock, not when Adam sucks on his neck, not when Adam drags his thumb along his vein. He doesn't make a sound until he breathes in too fast, almost a hiss, and then drops his forehead against Adam's shoulder and comes.

Adam's not sure exactly what's supposed to happen next. Or, he has a hazy idea -- he got Ronan off, Ronan gets him off -- but he doesn't know how to make that happen and Ronan has gone still, leaning against Adam and showing no signs of moving.

But this is nice, and he's not in a rush. Adam presses his nose against Ronan's skin and takes in the scent of him, all sweat and musk. He moves his hand to rest on his thigh -- Ronan flinches and exhales a sharp objection across Adam's chest. Adam mutters an apology, the effect of which is lost since his lips are resting against Ronan and he doesn't enunciate properly.

He catches his breath enough to ask, and then he thinks better of it, and then he decides that he really has to know, either way.

"That was good, right?"

He would have liked it if he could have sounded casual and carefree about it. But Ronan wouldn't have fallen for it. And maybe it's for the best that he knows.

Ronan nips at him. "You're needy."

Adam doesn't think _needy_ is the right word; nervous, maybe, insecure -- 

Ronan runs the tip of one finger lightly along the underside of Adam's cock.

To say Adam was not expecting that would be an understatement.

"Jesus _Christ!_ \-- "

Ronan interrupts him, kisses him like something out of an old black-and-white movie, a Disney cartoon; closed-mouthed and chaste, and all the while teasing him with that single light stroke. Every time Adam tries to deepen the kiss Ronan pulls back, never enough to break contact, but just enough to maintain the same kiss exactly as he'd started it.

After three or four tries Adam gives up, sits shaking on the bed and waits for Ronan to give him what he needs.

A tiny flicker of tongue against his lips. Adam opens his mouth and is rewarded with Ronan's mouth opening to him, with Ronan's hand curling around his cock and giving him a single squeeze.

And then Ronan stands up.

Adam blinks up at him, confused. Hadn't he done what Ronan wanted -- was there something he missed --

"Lie down," Ronan says. "On your back."

Adam's heart is going so fast that everything else feels slow, even the way he scrambles up into position. It feels like a year before he's on the bed, lying stretched out and vulnerable and so, so hard. He props himself up on his elbows for the small semblance of control that gives him over his situation; it isn't enough to stop his face going red when Ronan rakes his eyes over him, to stop him from gasping when Ronan places a knee on either side of his hips and sits back on Adam's thighs. Above him. Trapping him.

Ronan tells him, "touch yourself."

Adam's hand is slick enough from the mess Ronan made -- and Christ, isn't that a thought -- that he could easily jerk himself off. But he hesitates and then lifts his hand up to his face.

Slowly, he licks Ronan's come off his hand.

It's another thing that should probably be gross, and maybe it is, but the sticky bitter taste in his mouth is overwhelmed by the sound of Ronan's breath, sudden and jagged, and the dark, heavy look in his eyes.

Ronan asked for show, and Adam's -- not convinced he can make it a good show, really. Adam likes to practice and research when he has an unfamiliar task, but _how do I jerk off in a sexy way_ is not something that he's applied his usual rigorous standards of preparation to. The one thing he has going for him is that Ronan is weirdly fixated on his hands. Adam's not above using that information against him.

So he runs his tongue along each of his fingers one more time than is strictly necessary, and then he wraps his hand around himself. Runs his thumb over the head of his cock in small lazy circles. Slides his hand slowly down his shaft and watches the way Ronan's eyes slide down to follow it.

Every motion is painfully slow, but if he goes any faster he's going to come right away. He's going to come soon anyway, is braced for the embarrassment, but at least he got Ronan off first.

His breathing is already hard and ragged when Ronan says:

"Stop."

His hand freezes immediately, before he even asks _why_ , whether he'd done something wrong, whether he maybe shouldn't have kept going for five seconds since he was _so close_ \-- 

Ronan takes Adam's wrist and pulls his hand away, and with a strange little frown, wraps his own hand around Adam's cock.

 _Fuck_ , it feels good. Adam nearly shuts his eyes, but that same hungry impulse won't let him turn away, not when he wants so badly to see Ronan do this.

Ronan is staring at his cock, with a look of -- of _concentration_ \-- as he runs his thumb in a circle over the head. He was trying to figure out _how_ , how Adam liked to be touched, how to give him what he wants, and even though Ronan's touch isn't that exactly -- a little too clumsy, a little too slow -- the realization shoots through Adam, all _want-want-want-need_.

" _Ronan_."

Ronan looks him in the face and then pushes his shoulder, hard; knocks Adam flat onto his back and stretches out over him to kiss him, brutally hard. The close press of their bodies plays havoc with Ronan's touch, ruins that studied technique, but Adam _does not care_ because he has the mattress under him and Ronan over him and everything is perfect.

He can't decide what to do with his hands. He runs them up Ronan's sides, digs nails into his back, runs them back down to grasp at Ronan's hips. They want too much, want everything, and he can't keep them still -- at least until Ronan takes his hand off Adam's cock.

Adam groans, but his disappointment is short-lived. Ronan grabs his wrist, tugs Adam's hand up to rest on the back of his neck, does the same with his other hand. Ronan, at least, knows _exactly_ what Adam should be doing right now.

Adam rubs a thumb over the knot of bone at the top of Ronan's spine.

"Good," Ronan says, and then he's kissing Adam a second later, so that Adam groans against his mouth at the praise, groans louder when Ronan starts stroking him again.

It is good, and he feels it everywhere: in his hands, hot against Ronan's skin; in his toes, curling against the sheets of Ronan's bed; in his chest, where his heart is beating too fast and his lungs are working too hard for too little oxygen; in his shoulder blades, pushing against the bed, and in his hips trying to push up off of it -- only they can't, because Ronan has him pinned down, won't let him move, and something in that thought is so unbearably right that Adam whines in the back of his throat, a deeply embarrassing noise.

It's all so good, and yet he needs -- he needs -- 

Adam pulls his face away from Ronan, turns back to him. Turns away again.

Ronan kisses his jaw, scrapes his teeth lightly over his skin. Then he raises his mouth to Adam's ear and says, "You can come now."

"Oh _fuck_ ," Adam gasps, and it's that, it's everything; Ronan's breath hot in his ear, and the dead serious note in Ronan's voice, and the way Ronan is pinning him down, and the permission he hadn't known he was waiting for.

He's aware of Ronan kissing him, of Ronan's hand working him through his orgasm, of his own voice broken open. But it all feels a bit distant, second to the satisfaction crashing over him. He shuts his eyes and lets himself feel everything and think about nothing.

When Adam opens his eyes again Ronan is sitting over him, watching him.

There's a touch of skittish animal about him again.

"You know," Adam says, forcing a conversational tone even though he's still winded, "you almost crashed a car when I mentioned the possibility of sex. I thought you'd want to wait longer than a week."

"If it was going to be a problem, I wanted to know now."

Adam frowns. "Why would it be a problem?"

"Because you think about sex," Ronan says, "and I don't."

Adam pushes himself back up to his elbows. "I wasn't going to _make_ you -- "

Ronan rolls his eyes. "Would you stop freaking out? Jesus, you didn't _make_ me do anything." He swings a leg over Adam and collapses onto his back, lying next to him on the bed. Looks straight up. Tells the ceiling, "I wasn't sure I could."

Adam had been worried he'd be bad in bed, had thought of a hundred different ways he could screw up or embarrass himself or hurt Ronan.

He doesn't think that's what Ronan means.

He offers softly, "I could have waited."

"Forever?"

Adam is good at waiting. But there's always a goal at the end of it, a payoff for denying himself, a reward for his patience.

If there's any reward in the world better than Ronan he can't think of it.

"Yeah."

Ronan frowns. "That's stupid."

"As stupid as making yourself do something you hate?"

"I didn't hate it," Ronan says, and it's hard to hear, even when he was expecting it; hard to have the fear confirmed, that he's not good enough, that he doesn't merit any better than _I didn't hate it_.

But there's other fears, of getting shut out, of not deserving trust. As much as this conversation hurts, at least Ronan is having it with him.

Ronan turns his head over and Adam can see, immediately, why he'd broken eye contact. Adam is not the only one who's worried about being fucked up, wrong, not enough.

Adam pushes their hands together on the bed.

Ronan admits, "I liked winding you up."

"You would, you asshole."

"Right." Ronan runs his thumb over Adam's knuckles. "Like you didn't get anything out of it."

Adam licks his lips. Thinks about shuddering in Ronan's arms in the parking lot, kneeling in front of him in the hallway at Aglionby, being trapped under him just a moment ago.

A shiver runs over his skin. "Yeah," he says. "I liked it, too."

"Okay, so." Ronan shrugs. "Not a problem."

Adam doubts it's going to be that simple. It is, at best, somewhere to start from, the first in a series of painful conversations, only one of many intricate balancing equations.

But maybe it will be that simple. Ronan can make anything ten times more confusing than it needs to be, but he also has a way of stripping a thing down to the essential parts, cutting through all the bullshit to find the piece that matters.

And maybe Adam has picked up some of that from Ronan along the way, because he looks at the two of them in bed and sees the everything that matters, right in front of him.

"Nope," he says, resting his head on Ronan's shoulder. "Not a problem."

-

Adam blinks awake in the morning light and sees, not the cramped attic of St. Agnes, not the sterile good taste of Declan's room, but the unholy clutter that can only be one place in the world.

He grins, smug, and rolls over in bed to burrow his face into Ronan's chest.

"Jesus, are you going back to sleep?" Ronan asks. "You're lazy."

"You have to be nice to me," Adam mumbles. "You took my virginity last night."

Ronan presses his face against the top of Adam's head. His breath teases Adam's hair. Adam hums, content. "Virginity's a fucking construct."

Adam snorts. " _Fucking_ construct, nice." He yawns.

"Seriously, how are you falling asleep right now?" Ronan asks. "Aren't you hungry?"

He's about to tell Ronan that food can wait and then he decides -- no, he is hungry.

"Yeah, okay." Adam sits up and smiles down at Ronan. "Let's get breakfast."

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic you can [reblog it on tumblr](http://toast-the-unknowing.tumblr.com/post/168999485780/patience-is-a-virtue-shinealightonme-raven).


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